Lamenting Jamaica's failure to attract significant foreign capital to its farm sector, Minister of Industry Investment and Commerce, Karl Samuda, has urged a sprucing up of agriculture to make it more attractive to foreign-direct investment (FDI).

Samuda told a function for last Thursday's Jamaica launch of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development's (UNCTAD) 2009 World Investment Report that agriculture should be infused with technology and underpinned by enhanced packaging and marketing so that it could muscle its way to being a contender for foreign capital.

a country of quality

"It can't work if we don't identify our priorities, and one of the things that I think can make us move forward, is to be able to offer to the world the type of perception that Jamaica is a country of quality," Samuda said.

"We, undoubtedly, are recognised, worldwide, as a country of quality with respect to our athletes and what we have done (as regards) our entertainers (and) our tourism product," he added. "But, to say that we are a a country of quality in the production of agriculture, especially for export, would be to overstate the facts."

Jamaica last year had FDI inflows of US$789 million, a nine per cent decline on the 2007 figure - the clear impact of a slow-down in investment in tourism and the stalling of new capital to the bauxite/alumina sector in the face of the global recession.

But Samuda's pitch for agriculture was against the backdrop of what he and agricultural investment expert, Dr David Lowe, see as an opportunity for this region to steer capital to the farm sector.

At around $3 billion, FDI agriculture accounted for only two per cent of the $144 billion of private capital flows to Latin America and the Caribbean in 2008.

growing demand

But two decades ago, annual FDI flows to agriculture in the hemisphere hovered at around $1 billion, and experts say that a recent uptick was being driven by a need to fund the food-import needs of emerging markets, growing demand for biofuel production, and address land and water shortages in some developing countries.

"Jamaica is positioned to have further growth in agriculture," Lowe said at Thursday's launch of the FDI report.

"Things are not totally optimal at this point in time, but we can't wait for them to be optimal. What we have to do is go for the low-hanging fruits, make sure we do the things that we can do well, and do them quickly, " Lowe said.

research and development

It was in that context that Samuda stressed it was urgent Jamaica move to engage a new drive for agricultural production, with strong support for efforts in research and development.

Said Samuda: "We have to, in a very real way, recognise that the world is going to be under pressure for food to supply (to its populace). So Jamaica has to play its part, in a very proactive way, and identify specific areas where crops are grown, and then go after the investment, after we have packaged them.

"It's no use going out and saying 'Jamaica is a beautiful country'. We have a lot of arable land that can be used. It has to be packaged (and) presented the way you present any other product."